


anamnesis

by epicionly



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fill, Tumblr: imagineyourotp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 14:12:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3329237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epicionly/pseuds/epicionly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reincarnation and lifetimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	anamnesis

**Author's Note:**

> Something I wrote two years ago, according to tumblr. Slightly edited. More Jim centric than anything.
> 
> Prompt:  
> [Imagine your OTP being reincarnated- multiple times. Only person B remembers their past lives.](http://imagineyourotp.tumblr.com/post/37997303414/imagine-your-otp-being-reincarnated-multiple)

There are three lifetimes that he can remember the most; whether or not he is living in them, whether or not he lived in them once and yet again—it seems a lot of specifics don’t matter. But in one lifetime, his name is James Tiberius Kirk and he is the youngest Captain in Starfleet history, of the U.S.S. Enterprise.  In another lifetime, his name is still James Tiberius Kirk and he is the youngest Captain in Imperial Starfleet history, of the I.S.S. Enterprise. In the last of the three, his name is James Tiberius Kirk and he is the youngest Captain out of all of them and the U.S.S. Enterprise wasn’t meant for him. He is twenty-five, promoted cadet to Captain, too impenitent to predict, raw. But there are more lives he’s lived and will live, and not just the ones that parallel so closely, and there is always something the same in between them.

Identity issues, he supposes. Or something’s wrong with him. Or he’s trying to make something out of nothing. He’ll grow out of it, no worries. It’s just a thing. That’s what they tell him when he’s young.

He believes it even still for the first three rounds. And then he pretends they’re just dreams. Because that’s all they are, really. Countless dreams with countless lives spent with one other person that Jim can remember as easily as he could anything else. But dreams usually aren’t in such clear detail, and on the days when it rains, Jim is left to ponder thoughts as he waits impatiently for it to stop and the sun to come out. A river he visits frequently. A school friend. A polite inquiry at a game of 3-D chess. Kal-if-fee. The science labs. Starfleet Academy. Sickbay. Military dress uniform. A raised eyebrow. “Captain.” “Spock.” “Jim.” “T’hy’la.” The Empire. Gol. New York City. Mount Seleya. Then a blink, and the daydreams settle into the chilly bedroom with his PADDs scattered on his bed, of lives and moments from years he has yet to even have. That’s when he thinks that maybe the dreams might have been real, and the fourth round begins with trying to figure out why.

He doesn’t have multiple personalities, at least, that he’s sure. But sometimes he forgets whether or not something happened in this life or the next has happened or will happen or will never. And sometimes he asks himself if he’s crazy because he can and there is no way to check and be completely sure. And sometimes he wonders if this is a dream or a reality, if this is a mission and perhaps Jim is under something, or perhaps Jim is dead and everything here is just an echo, however different from the last.

It’s hard to remember what goes on. There are too many bits and pieces, small moments spent with a laugh or a smile. Sometimes it feels like there is a giant hand ghosting away, prodding him and pulling him at some junctures. He feels keen on space. His aptitude test results are off the chart. Potential in the eye of a storm, and then there’s Tarsus IV and things usually go blurry at that time. The world passes in a frenzy, and when he comes out, some nights he can’t remember whether or not it’s him who’s coming out laughing with the head of Kodos grasped in his hands, or if it’s a stranger who has lived so desperately to this point and doesn’t know what to do. Events change, and people are different. Jim is an ever-changing person, the opposite of a constant. But things still happen, and Spock does too.

It’s strange seeing him outside of the dream-memories, because before he ever does meet Spock, sometimes Jim can come up with the theory that he’s just making it all up in his head. But he can’t make up how he knows Spock enjoys a game of 3-D chess, or how he knows what it feels like to have a mind-meld with him. He can’t make up either how much he knows about Vulcan biology. About struggles, doubts, dreams, aspirations. About katra, about secrets. About what it will take to kill or to make live a Vulcan, and what left is necessary to make a half-Vulcan entirely too human. It unnerves him to try to pretend that he doesn’t know otherwise, because while Jim has always been a fairly decent actor, the Spock he always meets is _Spock_ , and Jim has either lived countless lives and moments with him or is very good at guessing. But in every new lifetime that comes to pass, he begins to accept that this  _is_  very real.

At the same time, Jim can’t tell what they are to each other or what’s real or not, or know how to treat him. He understands that what they meant to each other in other lives won’t be the same—shouldn’t be guaranteed to be the same. But sometimes the figurative nagging itch Jim tries to get rid of is too much to handle. Sometimes there’s an emptiness, there’s isolation, there’s something that pulls him in his dreams that he can’t reach because he wakes up just as he begins to grasp it. It’s not something he would put on anyone’s shoulders but his own, so he manages it. He tries to enjoy his life, his dreams, whatever it is he’s living in now, because he shouldn’t be missing Spock’s presence in his mind, the comfort of someone’s belief in him going further than he’s ever known, a something else that he's only known to have in several lifetimes.

Jim doesn’t know how to deal with this.

But always, when he wakes, Jim will remember fleeting warmth, memories of mind melds long ago, and the ghost of long fingers against his psi-points.

 


End file.
